Dog-friendly walks in Bamburgh

Five and a half miles in about three hours, out along the sand and rock under the castle to the lighthouse at Blackrocks Point, round Budle Point to the mudflats at Waren Mill and back inland over the golf links. Start from the pay-and-display car park on Links Road in the village, which is the largest in Bamburgh and still full by mid-morning in August. Northumberland has no seasonal dog ban on this beach, so the sand is off-lead all year; the return crosses grazed fields and a working golf course, and the Budle Bay flats hold roosting wildfowl that a loose dog will scatter.

Seven and a half miles with barely 70 metres of climbing, three hours of it, south down four miles of open sand to Seahouses harbour and back on the dune path and field edges behind. It starts at the Links Road car park in Bamburgh, and if that is full the alternative is to run the walk in reverse from the big pay-and-display behind Seahouses seafront. The whole beach is free of any seasonal dog restriction, so it is off-lead sand nearly the entire way out, with fresh water where the Hoppen Burn crosses the beach; the inland return passes through sheep fields and along a short stretch of the B1340.

A two and a half mile hour-and-a-quarter stroll from the village green round the seaward side of the castle to the whinstone slabs of Harkess Rocks and the squat white lighthouse at Blackrocks Point. Park on Links Road in the village and walk out past the cricket field; The Wynding has a small free strip of roadside parking nearer the start but only a dozen spaces. Off-lead throughout on sand and rock with no seasonal ban to worry about, rock pools to drink from at low tide, and the only caution is the slippery kelp on the black slabs and the tide cutting the corner below the castle at high water.